Learning That Sticks: A Brain-Based Model for K-12 Instructional Design and Delivery

In far too many classrooms, the emphasis is on instructional strategies that teachers employ rather than on what students should be doing or thinking about as part of their learning. Learning That Sticks helps you look inside the secrets of how our brains process new and existing knowledge, unpacking the cognitive science so you can sequence instruction and learning experiences that challenge, inspire, and engage your students. With an easy-to-use six-phase model and lots of practical advice, this book:

• Analyzes how to brain reacts to, stores, and retrieves information.
• Helps you “zoom out” to understand the process of learning from beginning to end.
• Helps you “zoom in” to see what’s going on in students’ minds during each phase.

Tools for Classroom Instruction That Works: Ready-to-Use Techniques for Increasing Student Achievement

This book provides 51 classroom-ready tools that make it easy to implement Classroom Instruction That Works strategies across grade levels and content areas. By incorporating these tools into your daily practice, you can turn your classroom into a place where high levels of engagement and deep learning happen every day.

Each of the 51 tools includes a summary of that tool’s research-based benefits, the 3-7 basic steps for using the tool, concrete examples that model how to use the tool in classrooms, and a “Teacher Talk” section that gives tips on lesson planning and implementation.

The final chapter in the book walks educators through a process for combining tools with principles of effective instructional design and knowledge of how student learning works to design focused, learning-driven, effective instructional plans.

Free White Paper | Student Learning That Works: How brain science informs a student learning model

Surgeons learn about the body before operating. So why don’t more teachers learn about the brain before educating? In this free white paper, McREL CEO Bryan Goodwin makes the case for incorporating brain science into the practice of teaching. Knowing how memory works can suggest classroom tactics that aid the acquisition and recall of information, he says. Furthermore, adopting a model for learning, rather than relying solely on the increasingly common (and increasingly detailed) instructional framework, can help teachers layer innovation upon tradition, in much the same way that models help screenwriters and composers to be creative within the audience’s expectations.